July 17, 2019: A telescope in Siberia
All text and images copyright Michael E. Lockwood, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.
I enjoy visiting clients and seeing how they have set up their telescopes, observatories, etc.
However, some are very far away and remote, and the best I will do is to see some photos. When I think of these clients, one always jumps out in my mind.
Years ago I sent a 16" mirror to Sakha Yakutia, a massive (in terms of land area) Russian republic that lies in the region that we would call east-central Siberia. It is one of the coldest places in the world, and the very large Lena River flows north through that area to the Laptev Sea and Artic Ocean.
The client, Vladimir, was kind enough to send some photos of the landscape and his telescope dome, and I am sharing a few here.
He built the dome and his own telescope, including the mirror cell and secondary holder. In other photos one can see insulation covering parts of the mounts, like a "mount parka" to help keep things from freezing up. Let's just say that shipping the mirror was a bit of an adventure, but it was sent through the USPS and made it in a reasonable time.
As I write this, some of the hottest weather of the summer is only a day away, so looking at the photos is kind of satisfying, and reminds me a little bit of growing up in very snowy northern Michigan.
Here he is, taking a break along the road.
He also shared some excellent astrophotos, some black-and-white, some color. I have seen the object below with my nightvision monocular and a narrow-band filter.
Here is M51, complete with faint tidal streamers.
Next, we have a very pretty image of M81......
Finally, we finish up with a beautiful M94.
Please check back for future installments of "In the Shop".
Mike Lockwood
Lockwood Custom Optics